Squeeeeeaaallll

Can you tell I am excited?

You have to get down to TK Maxx (if you're a scrapper) they have some amazing deals there at the moment. American Crafts Album kits for £7 that have 20 papers, thickers, stickers, chip AND a 12x12 postbound album. Its all new/newish ranges too!! I bought 6, I've needed new albums for ages but hate spending on it so these were too good to pass up. Also they have SHELVES of this stuff, not just one or two mixed in amongst all the crap like it normally is there.

I did have a picture but my memory card and Picasa are not playing ball!

Christmas shopping today, and it was really enjoyable and not too busy.

Scrapping tomorrow I hope!

A Scrapbooking Card

I like making cards that are mini scrapbooking pages and as I had this lovely picture of Jessica and Emily together it was an easy thing to make it into a card for Emilys birthday. I like that she can keep this card as a ready made picture frame after her birthday. Emily likes seeing my scrapbooking so I hope she will be pleased with this. Jessica is going to Emilys sleepover tonight and Joe is going to his dads.





We are off to my brothers for the evening, we were supposed to be going for a meal and then drinks in Cheltenham but I am still under the weather and have a dreadful hacking cough that is worse when I am moving about and in the cold so we are going to have a takeaway a nice bottle of wine and some games on the wii instead. I am looking forward to it, not seen my little brothers new home yet! Best bit is that Bruno gets to come too. Jessica informed me that going to a sleepover at my brothers house was 'gay' but then everything is 'gay' to Jessica at the moment!

The good news this week was that I finally finally found Jessicas must have christmas present, she wants a lotso huggin bear from toy story 3 and they are so hard to find, everywhere is out of stock or overpriced (I refuse to pay double on ebay!) But this week I managed to lay my hands on one. For a little girl whos vocabulary runs to saying 'gay' a hundred times a day she sure likes her cuddly toys!

Whats on TV

Afternoon

Nice quick one for me today, this came together without any pain.



That OA paper with the TV schedule was a gift as far as this LO is concerned, now I have to dash, its Jessica's Drama club and food shop night - I hate food shopping!

Paint everywhere!

I am increasingly using paints and mists and masks more and more in my layouts, from having a complete mental block where mists were concerned I suddenly seem to have clicked with them. I find that when starting your layout with paint or mist it really does look like a dogs dinner to start with and the temptation to throw it in the bin is huge, but really if you are just starting out with using either of these mediums, just PERSERVERE, keep on layering all your other elements and before you know it your dogs dinner will look more like a sumptious three course meal!

On this layout I used LOADS of paint techniques (I normally stick to just the one per page) these techniques are all ones I have used singularly before but this time I went MAD and you know what? I really like it. For the frame I used corrugated card roughly cut into a rectangle, I then covered it in torn up pages from an old book that I have no used for, I liberally covered each torn strip with poster paint (I think Gesso is the proper thing to use but poster paint worked for me!) a bit like the old Paper mache technique. The Poster paint drys but the newsprint is still visible.

If you want to really know how to use paints and mist you should visit this blog, this lady is the QUEEN of all things messy and always provides me lots of inspiration.

And its not just cafty stuff thats getting covered in paint, we are in the throws of decorating our hallway at the moment, here is a pic of our STUPID cat who just could not resist the temptation of the ladder and then could not get down!

Damn you Autocorrect

This is something that I say on quite a regular basis, Iphone has a system called autocorrect on your typing, where Iphone in its wisdom thinks it knows what you are trying to say better than you do.

I came across this site and just HAD to share, it made me cry with laughter, anyone with an iphone will feel their pain and everyone else will be guaranteed a chuckle!

A one hour reprise

Yay I got my laptop back today (it needed a new charger dock). Unfortunately with all my charger dock problems I have buggered up my charger and so I need to buy another one - they are about £45 in the shops so I am buying from ebay who are much cheaper. I literally have about 1 hour left on my battery until its bye bye again :( If anyone needs a quick and cheap laptop man in Bristol, let me know, he was fab and I would recommend him.

I've been scrapping with this months Scrapagogo kit and made a couple of pages, the first one is a shabby chic layered effect that I rarely do well, however I am pleased with this one!

And this one is for the Cocoa Daisy Crop - in the kitchen.

Thanks for looking x

Look to the Stars

Oh I am not feeling too bright this morning, my wisdom tooth is cutting through and my mouth is so sore, I can hardly open my mouth wide enough to eat. I also have a sore throat and a very weak voice and feel like I am running a temperature, but I so want to get out and about today, not sure I will be well enough :(

But I do have this layout to share that I made for a DT call a while back

Happy Sunday everyone, hope you have a fun filled scrappy one!

Cocoa Daisy Crop

I've had such a lovely indulgent day today. I decided to join in with the Cocoa Daisy inline crop and spend the whole day scrapping. I even didn't have a glass of wine last night so I could be bright and ready to roll straight away this morning. I sat down to scrap at 9am!!

Now I've said before I scrap slooooowww so I have only made 2 layouts for challenges 1 and 2 but I will deffo be doing more in the week (I've a busy time socialisng planned from now til Sunday eve)

So here is what I have done:

Challenge 1 we had to take inspiration from pic of a red and white living room that had frames on the wall - here is my take:

Challenge 2 - we had 9 album covers to choose from to draw inspiration from, I choose a garbage album called version 2, I used all one colour on my lo like the cover and also used the title work on my photos

I am in danger of losing my voice this evening I think, I am very crocky today for some reason, too much yapping might be the end of it - won't stop me though! ;)

Year 6

Jessica's school employs one of these more modern school photographers nowadays, where you get a posed shot. He seems to like to get them lying on their stomach with their legs up and crossed behind them in the air, which is all well and good, but last year he left their socks on and to my shame Jessicas photo came complete with very very grubby socks so there was no way I was buying those!

This years are better, he made them take their socks off!



Today I made this layout, I've been busy crafting all week, but for DT stuff so its nice to complete something for me that I can actually show you now. Its based on the latest Sketchy Thursday sketch and heres my take on it:



I kept it quite clean and simple, which seemed to suit my mood today, looking at it now I can see that there could be lots more added to it, but todays mood is clean so like this it stays!

I've not had a night out in 2 weeks, I am gagging to get out tomorrow night! I've saved all my slimming world syns for a few drinkies.

Scrapping Disasters Darling

I am certainly having my fair share this week! Yesterday I was shaking a bottle of pink cosmic shimmer mist with the lid on and it sprayed everywhere (turns out there was a hole in the bottom of the bottle) it went all over the 5 cropped photos that I was about to use, it went all over the completed birthday card for my sisters birthday next week and it went all over my jumper that I was wearing, all of those things completley ruined!

Today I finished the 2nd layout for The Scrapbook Magazine, and I was really pleased with it, I was photographing it on my kitchen worktop on an easel, when the bloody thing toppled off and managed to land face down in a tiny amount of tomato splodge that was on the worktop, I now have a large area that I will need to fill and I am massively NOT AMUSED! I hate having black worktops I genuinely did not see the tomato sauce at the back of the surface.

Anyhow I do have 2 completed layouts that I really like (well when I have performed surgery on the 2nd one) and so at least thats something. Here are a couple of sneeks for you:






At the moment here it is raining so heavily that it sounds like I am in a caravan not a house, I am soooo looking forward to picking up Jess in an hour! Lets hope it stops, I don't have that many talents in life but one of them is the ability to be the wettest person around when it is raining, I kid you not, the rain is attracted to me and while most people will look a little damp I will look like a spaniel that took a swim in a river! One thing about winter I am liking is the ability to wear a hat, thus covering my hair and stopping me needing to make my birds nest presentable, just whack on a hat and go!

Frustrating!

Oooo its so frustrating! I have an commission from TSM and I just can't get started, after procrastinating all morning I finally sat down to create and have only managed to ruin one really nice piece of paper - bah! Luckily the deadline is not for another 6 weeks so I have plenty of time but I hate it when I stall like this.

We've had a busy quiet weekend, went into town yesterday with the intention of buying Joe and Jess some winter jumpers and managed to come back with a gorgeous winter coat for myself (Jason offered to get it me for crimbo but I WANT IT NOW!!!) so I bought it myself. I did managed to pick a few things up for the sproglets so its not all bad.

We've also done a far bit of decorating in the hall, its just the painting left now and managed to get Joe and Jess to tidy their rooms. Joe is getting a high sleeper this week, poor love has the box room and he has really outgrown it so we are hoping this will give him more space.

Creative wise I have not done too much, unless you count colouring in owls endlessly (I got a bit addicted actually) I bought this weeks little musings which were owls with scarfs and hats etc and so my cards will feature these this christmas. Jess and I spent a happy hour or two colouring them in on Saturday.

here are the owls:

and here is an example card

I don't profess to being a great (or even good) card maker, its not a love of mine!

And one last ramble before I sign off of blogland. I have started Slimming World AGAIN, I've put on half a stone since the wedding and my clothes were getting tight and I am looking very puffy of face so I have taken the bull by the horns and hope to get a half stone off by our christmas meal on Dec 18th (thats unrealistic but 5lbs would be nice) Let it be noted that I am hungry :(

Pretty Kitty

Bonfire night tonight then, we had a few bangs yesterday which the dog barked at. Bruno only found his bark about last December and so last bonfire night he pretty much slept through and even at one point joined us in the garden for sparklers, he was not in the slightest bit bothered. So we had words last night, he is just barking for the sake of it and because he is becoming a grumpy old man! He knows now I won't tolerate it! But we shall see what tonight brings.

I felt in need of a sketch yesterday to jump start some scrapping so I used this one at Twisted Sketches: Sketch 74 The twist was animals. My finished result was a far bit off sketch but it really helped me get going and some elements are the same. This photo was taken shortly after we got Skittle in Aug 2007, before we fell out and became sworn enemies!! Its my favourite one of her as she looks so pretty in it.

I am currently trying to organise a christmas meal for the pub lot, OMG its been a royal pain in the butt let me tell you. NEVER again its just not worth the hassle! I hope its a good night.

FANTAstic

I've made a good start on my christmas shopping this week and all from the comfort of my reclining sofa! I love internet shopping, no crowds and mostly cheaper, even with P&P on top. I've even sent an email to Jason with links to what I want (I sourced it as cheap as I can for him) and as some were low stock he did a bit of shopping for me last night ;) With a bit of research I managed to get 2 items for a bargain price, saving him around £40, don't say I never do anything for him!

I've managed a bit of scrapping today too. I bought an easel from Ikea on Sunday just for photographing my layouts on, with the terrible weather and light at the moment it makes it a bit easier. Still its not the best colour wise.

I've a faulty connection on my laptop which means its hard to get it to charge up, one false move and I lose the charge, its getting steadily worse and it very annoying, I rang a repair shop and they want £89 to fix it, its only a case of soldering the connection but it seems from research that its the going rate. Pah! I will struggle on for now I think!

Butterflies and Reindeers

Oh dear I have been a very bad blogger, no excuses I can't even think whats filled my time, well I can but really it should have taken second fiddle to crafting!

On Sunday morning we took advantage of the extra hour and went to Ikea (in all honesty I used that extra hour about 3 times!!! - one to go to a late night pub, as I had an extra hour, one to sleep a bit longer, as I had an extra hour and one to make the trip to Ikea, as I had an extra hour) we ended up in bed at 8.20pm on Sunday night because we used that extra hour so much!


Anyway Ikea did what it always does and thats make you spend money on things you don't need but suddenly realise you can't live without, unfortunately I had to live without the cutest christmas wrapping paper ever as it was out of stock. Its the Kraft one and has red reindeers on, it was LOVELY! We left ikea over £100 poorer just from buying a mirror, a load of photo frames and bits and pieves.

On the subject of photo frames, we are currently decorating our hallway and I want to do a wall of frames, all different, in white, light wood and dark(ish) wood. Mostly I am going to fill the frames with black and white photos, but to break it up I am going to make a few home decor items myself - to that end, I made this.






You can see its very simply done with just some neutral backing paper and the butterflies that I made the other week. A proper 10 min project!